The companies that are anti-remote are on thin ice. There are enough pro-remote companies that they are screwed, because they will lose top employees if they force everyone back.
The smarter of the anti-remote companies have realized this and are in a perpetual denial/paralysis phase. It would be easier if they just gave up and stopped trying to bring people back.
Long term lookout, I think companies who requiring people to go to the office because of nature of their work will likely pay employees more. Employees who need the extra money won’t mind going into the office.
And companies are already reducing pay based on distance of employees’ homes if they choose to work from home.
I think the market will automatically balance itself out in a few years.
Curious how eeoc protected classes will factor into reducing pay based on location. That seems like wage discrimination. Any employment laws that have been tested around this in court?
Sex/gender: I need my commute time to take care of my children.
Health/medical condition/genetics: commuting increases my blood pressure, triggers anxiety and panic, and reduces my overall mental and physical health and quality of life.
Quite literally. I don’t know the resolution of geographic pay my employer uses (I suspect it’s by metropolitan area, but could easily be down to zip code), but I do have access to the regional differences of my employees (several large offices globally, and many remote employees). Same for my wife’s employer (several large offices, very few fully remote employees).
Wife’s company makes explicit comp adjustments if an employer moved. Mine does not, but it does impact future adjustments.
If there is a problem, I think they will be able to get around it breaking pay into two parts.
1. A base amount that is based solely on the job to be done and the level of skill and experience required. The base pay is the same no matter where you live and is the same regardless of whether the work is done remotely or at one of their offices.
2a. If the company requires you to do the work at a particular location, or lets you work at home part of the time but requires you to come to a particular location often enough that you have to live in the general area of that location, they can pay an additional amount based on the cost of living in that area.
2b. If the company imposes geographical constraints on remote employees, such as requiring them to live in specific countries, states, or timezones, they can pay an additional amount based on the cost of living in those countries, states, or timezones.
The key is to only have pay depend on location to the extent that the company constrains the worker's location. That should be very unlikely to run afoul of discrimination law.
> The key is to only have pay depend on location to the extent that the company constrains the worker's location
When the worker has agency to chose remote vs in office, tying pay to physical location seems like coercion though. Doesn't that constrain the worker? "Live in this specific area and come to the office and we will maintain your current pay. Else, you have to take a pay cut for the same role and work output"
Maybe this is a reason why some companies are hesitant to have it both ways and are inclined to force people back to the office. Could they be reducing legal exposure to equal pay lawsuits?
A little unintuitive if the employer is paying the office worker more than the remote worker. It's cheaper for the employer if they don't have to pay for offices, pay those electric bills, hire the janitorial staff, etc.
I suppose the higher pay reflects the employer's expectation of a higher return on productivity, creativity, from that employee.
Or, put another way, they are docking the pay of the remote worker expecting that they are probably not clocking in a "full days work" or will fail to deliver on the fruits of collaboration....
Companies tend to pay what they need to in order to hire someone and hopefully retain them. A lot of factors play into that including overall skills, fit with the specific job, whether the team is mostly co-located and where, whether they're local/remote/willing to relocate, market rates where they're going to live, etc.
I do expect we'll see some equalizing of salary bands at remote heavy companies. If I don't care if you're in the Bay Area or not, your decision to live there is a personal choice just like living in Aspen would be.
> I suppose the higher pay reflects the employer's expectation of a higher return on productivity, creativity, from that employee
Not necessarily higher productivity, but different. An employee that is present at the physical office when most people don't, is providing a peculiar (and rare) kind of value besides their actual productivity in their role, _if_ the company values something about their physical offices. There may be many reasons why the company would, but exploring that is a different topic.
>A little unintuitive if the employer is paying the office worker more than the remote worker. It's cheaper for the employer if they don't have to pay for offices, pay those electric bills, hire the janitorial staff, etc
Companies ask for this shit for obedience, not to reduce costs...
There are two sides to this and one side consistently seems to get ignored in these threads. If a company in San Francisco decides it will allow its employees to work from anywhere from now on, but pay according to local cost of living, then employees who had been based out of San Francisco and decide to move to San Antonio may have to take a pay cut to do so.
That is the side that is always focused on.
The other side is people who already lived in San Antonio but can't relocate, for one reason or another. Their spouse has a career and doesn't want to leave. Their kids are in school and don't want to leave. They're disabled or have family in the area that depends on them. Those people can suddenly go work for the company in San Francisco that is no longer requiring you to relocate, and might make less than employees based in San Francisco, but more than anyone was offering in San Antonio.
This is the side that never seems to get brought up.
It's not at all clear that, when the dust settles, the balance of those who had to take pay cuts versus those who saw pay raises to work remotely is going to work out with more seeing pay cuts. Short run that will be the case just because most companies had a lot more pre-existing employees in March 2020 than they have hired since. But that won't remain the case forever.
>And companies are already reducing pay based on distance of employees’ homes if they choose to work from home.
Fast food companies might do this (just because they can get away with anything), but companies that dare pull this shit in any sector which favors employees should be shut down immediately...
People are paid for their work, not for their distance from the office. If they want to try to reduce pay for that, how about adding the commute to working hours?
The “pay less for remote workers” thing will only work if all employees follow suit. If Apple decides to cut pay for remote workers, but google doesn’t, you’re going to see a lot more former Apple employees join ranks at Google.
You are assuming that every / most employee wants to be remote. This is not the case, and these companies are obviously selecting for a team that wants to work together in person.
There are plenty of people who choose to work from office, around 20% of total staff of major software companies as far as I remember. I worked from home about 5 years (remote-only company), long before COVID, and I strongly disliked it. I'm just tired to live in the office, not having private space and private time, and surprisingly, having fewer and fewer time for my family. After COVID I took a firm decision not to work from home anymore, even I like the project and other conditions.
> Having little human contact is really devastating
Chronic isolation massively accelerated the burnout I had from my startup. While I had worked from home for several years, I went out most nights of the week to see friends. The lockdown eliminated that.
I had to make a serious change in direction for my own mental health. So earlier this year I put the startup on indefinite hold and did the unthinkable: I got a job.
I feel tons better now than I did a year ago. I still prefer working from home, but now I have people I can talk to on a daily basis.
It’s not devastating for me. I’m happy for people to get what they need, but the broad brush in these declarations, at this stage of the conversation, is unhelpful.
Glad you're policing what "stage of the conversation" we're at. We wouldn't want to be at the stage where a lone "works for me" dismisses legitimate concerns from what could be your top employee.
Handled by the “for some” part. Some people like RTO, some like WFH, some want a bit of both, some want to live 2 km/miles from the office, and some want to live 2000 km/miles from the office. Some want the water cooler, some want to be left alone and focus. Some want to maximize income and others want balance. Anything that hews strongly in a particular direction will close off another demographic of workers.
Society should tilt the scale at least back to even in terms of power balance. Currently, the scale is tilted heavily towards the employer and against the employee. Power should always be even, if not slightly tilted in favor of the individual.
Who is the ‘individual’ you are referring to? In tech and many other skilled industries the individual employee has a huge amount of control over what their life looks like, who they work for, where they live, etc.
Those who are less skilled likely have less ‘power’ as you define it. But isn’t that exactly what we should expect?
Actually, the current labor shortage has given even those unskilled workers some temporary power. At least until the govt transfer payments dry up, student loan payments restart and people are forced back to into the workforce in droves.
My daughter (high school) described the last 400 or so days as seemingly each one like the one before. I happen to agree.
While one could argue that commuting into work before the pandemic was each day running into the next, I think I would have to disagree. The random conversation and exchange with coworkers, talking about life plans over lunch ... it's missing over WebEx/Zoom.
No doubt some prefer to work remotely but I am beginning to think the idea of offices and collaboration between coworkers is neither an antiquated system that's long past due for the trash heap not is it a nefarious plot among corporate to enslave its workers. I'm beginning to think it evolved out of a necessity for the majority of workers to feel a sense of worker-community and camaraderie.
Your family has been disconnected from others and friends. Wfh doesn't have to mean isolation. The community who needs you is more local. One day you will retire and work won't be there.
>It couldn't have started as the alternative because sending a letter to ask your colleague something wouldn't work to begin with.
You might be surprised. At my first engineering job, we basically sent letters to people at job locations with questions. (OK, the secretary typed a memo up and it went up to the comms room who transmitted a Telex but, yes, basically a letter.)
You could have make some time to meet with friends or other social activities, after all, with your own company you had infinite flexibility.
But it looks like you bought that myth about “when you are not working your competitors are, so work ALL the time” instead. And you end up closing the startup anyway.
Seriously, how ignorant should company be to use phrasing like this? Any communication I have seen so far uses pretty neutral language like “return to premises”.
I have to agree with the sensation of chagrin towards “back to work”; partially because is it feels like a loaded statement. Work never stopped for my org, we kept working, some of us worked MORE, a lot more, and saw no appreciable benefit from it other than being rewarded with more work still.
So is it “back to work” or “back to the panopticon of the modern office and radar scope of the management class”?
I cynically think it’s the latter, and it’s become a specific topic that I ask about in interviews.
Remote-refusant companies: pass, remote-only companies: a bit better, remote optional or hybrid companies: let’s talk. I’d rather work for a place that treats me, the professional like a professional and gives me the choice and say in the matter.
I would probably read it as back to the workplace and not be infuriated by it.
If my employer does not believe we have been working this past 18 months I wish someone would have told me so I could have hiked the Pacific Crest Trail or taken up gardening full time.
I mean honestly, I haven't been working. I'd say I'm averaging 5 hours a week of productive time since March 2020. Nobody's watching, nobody cares. I'm supposed to sit in front of a computer 40 hours a week just to do it?
Let's talk about the real elephant in the room: bullshit jobs vs real jobs.
Alot of engineers are stuck in bullshit jobs where most meeting can be emails and no reason to be physically anywhere except clock the 8 hours so we can get paid. How many times have we coded a 21 hour task in 50 minutes of stack?
Now. group 2. People that have startups people with aspiration people developing actually usefull software.
> My morning routine is well-oiled. I drink a big glass of water, do some exercise, hit the shower, meditate for a few minutes, read a few pages, take some notes, and write a few more paragraphs of my next book.
It seems ludicrous to me that some people are able to get this much done in an hour. If I'm able to exercise AND shower in that amount of time I'm doing good.
They are just really good at self-delusion or not very good at lying. Either that, or that's some really crappy meditation, book paragraphs, notes, or all of the above.
It doesn't have to be a lot of everything. A shower can take 10 minutes or less, exercise can be as basic as a few push-ups, jumping jacks, etc. I varied my routine over the week. Some days I did 45 minutes of exercise, some days none. I didn't intend to be overly precise in the article, sorry about that ;-)
My former company said we would be having an in person party in August—-no option to back out, and then there were clients with in person meetings. So I left and started my own company. Lesson: When even one person says no to a survey, do not steamroll that person.
You can debate how soon is too soon of course. But, even at companies that have pushed out generally reopening offices with some sort of hybrid model into next year, there are in-person client meetings, industry events are spinning back up, etc.
The USC team that developed one of the most accurate pandemic models predicts 8000+ deaths daily by mid-November. 8000 a day. Deaths. If this is even half right, it is bad.
The August 4 IHME report with SIKJalpha model data. The newest report favors 2000 deaths per day as the peak in early October based on data from Los Alamos National Laboratory and SIKJalpha projections: http://www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/covid_briefs/1...
Am I reading correctly that your company wanted a one off meeting of the team, a party, and you felt you should have the option not to attend? And because of that...you quit?
I know people who would almost certainly refuse to attend a large in-person event right now. He also mentions client meetings. There are jobs with a lot of normally F2F customer interactions where, at this point, getting back to some physical meetings is not really optional (even if it theoretically is).
Thinking on it more...if a member of my team was vulnerable I would not expect them to take the risk. Reality is that even though we are a work from anywhere business we still need to meet face to face from time to time.
There will come a time when COVID stops being a no questions asked reason to avoid any in-person events, meetings, or travel. But if at all possible (obviously not everything can be done remotely), I would want to give people flexibility if they think they need it at least through the end of the year.
The larger issue is: Why do highly skilled employees need to ask permission to make a decision as to where they can physically work when physical location is not a requirement of performance of the work? Thanks, I will run my own business instead of working for some dinosaur who thinks nothing has changed since 1998.
The company I left will lose 25% of annual revenue because of antiquated thinking. Those with unprepared minds should retire. Workers have power, particularly skilled workers who are highly educated. The ones who think for themselves are the ones who start companies and ultimately replace the outmoded companies.
Periodically getting together F2F is IMO pretty important for building relationships. Not absolutely essential in all cases of course. But I feel that one thing that has allowed me to be productive over the past 18 months is that I've coasted to some degree on existing relationships.
This is true of both people I work with at my company and industry peers. And I've heard the same argument from many people with respect to attending industry events and the like where many value the hallway track which has been pretty much dismal with online events.
(To be clear, I obviously don't mean the whole company at a large company. But I do think it important for teams and people who otherwise work together.)
Face to face is going to get very expensive very fast. It can get more expensive than you imagine. As I mentioned, the company I left is taking a huge hit. Opinions don’t stand up to reality in a changed world. No matter your past experience, this is new to you and your experience is no good here. Fortune favors the prepared mind.
Your company, your choice. But neither I nor most of the people I know have any interest in a company that is aggressively remote only in this manner. Best of luck.
I find it amazing that you think you can decide for someone about a health issue citing that face to face is just a “reality” to people who have been doing their jobs for 18 months effectively from home. Managers think they own people. They don’t and good luck to anyone on “your” team, as if it ever was. What exactly is the work-related task you can’t do except face to face? The insecurity is really coming out here with middle managers. You don’t pay the salary. You are an employee too. Middle management is a dying breed. Problem is the future is here 20 years early. Good luck with retention.
You clearly had a bad experience with managers, sorry to hear that. So did I before I started my businesses over 15 years ago.
The people I employ are on "my" team just as I am on "their" team. It's not a question of ownership.
I decided to set us up as a work from anywhere business at the start of the pandemic because that's best for my team and for the business overall.
Having said that I still need face to face meetings from time to time, as do our clients... notwithstanding I'll always consider the impact of those requests on my individual team members.
I have no issues with retention and my employee NPS scores are consistently over 50 percent.
Yes, and I have tripled my income in the first 2 months of starting my business. There were multiple face to face meetings planned with clients, as well.
The author’s description of his morning routine painfully reminds me of my own, “before times” daily grind. I don’t miss it, and I never want it back.
I met with my work team in person last week - at the beach, not the office - and it was great to see their faces after 18 months. I can see the benefits of working face to face from time to time. Once a month ought to be more than enough, if not once a quarter.
TBH I don't mind going to the office from time to time. It is indeed nice to see colleagues face to face. What I'm against is organizations forcing people to be present in the office every X out of fear that people won't feel "connected" to the organization.
I think tech workers will win the PR game in the short term on this issue because of delta, but lose in the long run. Pay is a lot higher in this industry than many others in America, and when tech workers move into smaller towns they end up distorting the local economy. People often dislike the 'improvements' that come with the new residents and end up getting priced out of their homes. Meanwhile, tech workers complain they won't be making San Francisco wages in their new, much cheaper, location. It's not a good look, and a lot of people resent it.
Californians were already one of the most hated groups west of the Rockies and now they're moving out in droves, acting just as entitled as people already assumed they were.
I seriously doubt this will be a significant effect in very many places. I'm sure a lot of beach/ski towns might have issues as a bunch of newly full-time remote workers try to move there but most places won't have big enough inflows to affect local housing supplies/prices and the new cash in the local economy will be a net-positive.
So when you say "tech workers", what you really mean is "American tech workers."
In fact, what you specifically mean is "Silicon Valley tech workers," given that pay and CoL are much, much lower in most of America, including for tech workers.
I've noticed that, like the author, many advocating for WFH live far away from their office and have long commutes.
Suppose your office were next door. Then, you could have a 1-minute commute and enjoy some degree of socialization and the amenities of the office. You could have lunch at home, and you wouldn't need dedicated workspace there.
The fact that many would prefer this setup to WFH suggests that the problem is not the office itself but the commute. There is a distance that, for most folks, commuting doesn't present much of a problem.
For example, my commute by bicycle is about 9 minutes, bus 15 minutes, car 20 minutes. I think the trade-off is worth it here, but I can imagine a point where it wouldn't be.
This doesn't scale, though. It's the fundamental problem - unless all your employees are interested in living in a place dense enough to support great transit (and willing to pay the rent premium), many of them will have to commute.
There are only a few places in the world with transit of that caliber (Tokyo, London, NYC, etc. ). Even most medium or large cities aren't good enough for that experience. Public transit in Seattle is a disgrace (in most areas you're lucky if you can get one bus per half hour, and that bus is stuck in the same traffic as cars, and those buses never go from where you are to where you want - you have to go downtown and transfer from there, and the buses stop running long before the bars close). BART isn't exactly holding up well either.
And, honestly, rush hour commuting in Tokyo/NYC/London isn't great either.
I didn't read the parent as arguing for living near work. Rather I read it as him saying that the commute is what tips the scales towards WFH most days for many people. Which I think is absolutely true.
Indeed, I wasn't arguing about living close to or far away from the office. I was arguing about not having the choice of going to the office when we've proven that it's almost never really needed.
That's almost certainly true for many. If I were a 10 minute walk from my office and had a dedicated desk, I would probably go in semi-regularly. I don't even have a bad commute--about a 30 minute drive--but it's enough that if there's no good reason for me to go into the office (which there rarely is) I don't.
I'm also on a very distributed team so it's not unusual if I do go into the office to meet with someone, I often don't run into anyone else I know.
The other side of this coin is the home working space. If you live in a tiny little efficiency in NYC, I can imagine WFH is a fucking nightmare. If you have a ranch style home in the burbs with a room you can dedicate to being a home office, it's pretty nice.
Yes, of course. There are so many shades of grey...
That's why I tried to remain careful with the statements I made in my article. I've described my specific situation (family, both working in IT, two children, living far away from the office, etc), and didn't want to speak for everyone.
maybe im just lazy and immature, but i really enjoy being in sweatpants and t-shirt all day. i only put on jeans and a button down 2-3 times per week.
also when you have little kids its such a privilege to be home all day, being able to take a 5 min break to go give them a hug and kiss and wrestle around with them a little bit.
im super comfortable and productive working from home, i love it.
If remote work is a true option, people have the option to live close to extended family. Children can spend time with grandparents, aunts and uncles. Now, I'll grant you I sound like a hippy but if you read child psychology literature, these styles of multigeneration household/child-rearing is supposed to be good for both the children and the elders.
my wife doesnt work, she would rather be with the kids. also we have a nanny for half the day. how can i afford this? i work for a US company, but live outside the US.
Not even in this case I'd return. I prefer to be able to cook my own food, have lunch at home with my partner when she is here, not having to deal with the noises and all the chit chat around me all day, etc.
For some, the commute is a trade-off made and accepted so that they don't have to live in a crowded, noisy city center which is where many offices are.
I lived in a city, had a short commute to work. That was nice. But I hated living there except for that. I moved to an outlying area where I could have a house and a garden and a workshop in the garage. The commute went way up, which sucked, but when I was home I was so much more relaxed and happier it was worth it.
I'm the author of the article. My wife and I don't want to live in a city. We grew and always lived in small villages. The land is more affordable, there's much less pollution, we have more than enough space, a vegetable garden, hens, etc. We don't want to change any of that.
Of course every situation is different. Many colleagues live close to the office and are glad to be able to go there regularly. They enjoy it, and there's nothing wrong with that.
We initially found work in the capital because it's where the best opportunities are. All the big financial & European institutions have their headquarters in Brussels. Salaries are also much more interesting.
One of the points I wanted to convey in the article is that we've now proved that we can achieve the same work remotely, so there's no point in forcing us to go back to the office. It's about freedom of choice more than anything.
I once had a short (10 minutes) commute. I worked a lot at home because my home setup is better than what any work provide (better screen, better chair, often better computer)... and no one bothered me with "hey, how is it going" every 30 minutes, judged me for leaving my desk for 1 hour, on what I ate or not.
Heck, I could THINK.
Those things are way too scarce in an open office.
So no, even for a short commute, I don't want to go to the office.
>> Suppose your office were next door. Then, you could have a 1-minute commute and enjoy some degree of socialization
I'm a software developer. I don't enjoy socialization with other software developers. Not at all. Not ever. I write code for money, it's called "compensation" for a reason.
People do not seem to be getting the message. I don't want any degree of socialization. None. Zero. Honest question, how can I possibly make this clearer to people like you?
By the law of USA communist unity, tax cattle state property objects owe their labor to the community, so one must not be permitted to object to full labor compliance.
I haven't worked at an office in the past 10+ years, but I can recall the 2-hour lunches, the hour-long meetings, which finished in 20 minutes, and the next 40 minutes getting spent in non-company related chat as you have a solid proof on your calendar that you did work, indeed. I won't work at an office anymore, even if I get paid less for working remotely (although I've always made mode working remotely than working in Orange County, CA where I live), because it's just better, and I'm more productive. Even when I worked close to home, I still wasted an hour in commute and parking, and maybe another hour getting ready for work, etc. Not to mention all the risks associated with the commute, the respiratory diseases we keep catching from sick people who don't stay home and prefer to cough and sneeze in the faces of their coworkers just to show off as the world's greatest workaholics.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 217 ms ] threadThe smarter of the anti-remote companies have realized this and are in a perpetual denial/paralysis phase. It would be easier if they just gave up and stopped trying to bring people back.
And companies are already reducing pay based on distance of employees’ homes if they choose to work from home.
I think the market will automatically balance itself out in a few years.
Sex/gender: I need my commute time to take care of my children.
Health/medical condition/genetics: commuting increases my blood pressure, triggers anxiety and panic, and reduces my overall mental and physical health and quality of life.
Wife’s company makes explicit comp adjustments if an employer moved. Mine does not, but it does impact future adjustments.
1. A base amount that is based solely on the job to be done and the level of skill and experience required. The base pay is the same no matter where you live and is the same regardless of whether the work is done remotely or at one of their offices.
2a. If the company requires you to do the work at a particular location, or lets you work at home part of the time but requires you to come to a particular location often enough that you have to live in the general area of that location, they can pay an additional amount based on the cost of living in that area.
2b. If the company imposes geographical constraints on remote employees, such as requiring them to live in specific countries, states, or timezones, they can pay an additional amount based on the cost of living in those countries, states, or timezones.
The key is to only have pay depend on location to the extent that the company constrains the worker's location. That should be very unlikely to run afoul of discrimination law.
When the worker has agency to chose remote vs in office, tying pay to physical location seems like coercion though. Doesn't that constrain the worker? "Live in this specific area and come to the office and we will maintain your current pay. Else, you have to take a pay cut for the same role and work output"
Maybe this is a reason why some companies are hesitant to have it both ways and are inclined to force people back to the office. Could they be reducing legal exposure to equal pay lawsuits?
I suppose the higher pay reflects the employer's expectation of a higher return on productivity, creativity, from that employee.
Or, put another way, they are docking the pay of the remote worker expecting that they are probably not clocking in a "full days work" or will fail to deliver on the fruits of collaboration....
I do expect we'll see some equalizing of salary bands at remote heavy companies. If I don't care if you're in the Bay Area or not, your decision to live there is a personal choice just like living in Aspen would be.
Not necessarily higher productivity, but different. An employee that is present at the physical office when most people don't, is providing a peculiar (and rare) kind of value besides their actual productivity in their role, _if_ the company values something about their physical offices. There may be many reasons why the company would, but exploring that is a different topic.
Companies ask for this shit for obedience, not to reduce costs...
Profit per employee sets salary ceiling. Market sets salary.
That is the side that is always focused on.
The other side is people who already lived in San Antonio but can't relocate, for one reason or another. Their spouse has a career and doesn't want to leave. Their kids are in school and don't want to leave. They're disabled or have family in the area that depends on them. Those people can suddenly go work for the company in San Francisco that is no longer requiring you to relocate, and might make less than employees based in San Francisco, but more than anyone was offering in San Antonio.
This is the side that never seems to get brought up.
It's not at all clear that, when the dust settles, the balance of those who had to take pay cuts versus those who saw pay raises to work remotely is going to work out with more seeing pay cuts. Short run that will be the case just because most companies had a lot more pre-existing employees in March 2020 than they have hired since. But that won't remain the case forever.
Fast food companies might do this (just because they can get away with anything), but companies that dare pull this shit in any sector which favors employees should be shut down immediately...
People are paid for their work, not for their distance from the office. If they want to try to reduce pay for that, how about adding the commute to working hours?
Chronic isolation massively accelerated the burnout I had from my startup. While I had worked from home for several years, I went out most nights of the week to see friends. The lockdown eliminated that.
I had to make a serious change in direction for my own mental health. So earlier this year I put the startup on indefinite hold and did the unthinkable: I got a job.
I feel tons better now than I did a year ago. I still prefer working from home, but now I have people I can talk to on a daily basis.
It’s not devastating for me. I’m happy for people to get what they need, but the broad brush in these declarations, at this stage of the conversation, is unhelpful.
Those who are less skilled likely have less ‘power’ as you define it. But isn’t that exactly what we should expect?
Actually, the current labor shortage has given even those unskilled workers some temporary power. At least until the govt transfer payments dry up, student loan payments restart and people are forced back to into the workforce in droves.
While one could argue that commuting into work before the pandemic was each day running into the next, I think I would have to disagree. The random conversation and exchange with coworkers, talking about life plans over lunch ... it's missing over WebEx/Zoom.
No doubt some prefer to work remotely but I am beginning to think the idea of offices and collaboration between coworkers is neither an antiquated system that's long past due for the trash heap not is it a nefarious plot among corporate to enslave its workers. I'm beginning to think it evolved out of a necessity for the majority of workers to feel a sense of worker-community and camaraderie.
Respectfully? Bollocks.
We didn't have any other alternative besides offices until a few decades ago, and we all know how much inertia society has.
It couldn't have started as the alternative because sending a letter to ask your colleague something wouldn't work to begin with.
Also, distrust of employees.
You might be surprised. At my first engineering job, we basically sent letters to people at job locations with questions. (OK, the secretary typed a memo up and it went up to the comms room who transmitted a Telex but, yes, basically a letter.)
But it looks like you bought that myth about “when you are not working your competitors are, so work ALL the time” instead. And you end up closing the startup anyway.
So is it “back to work” or “back to the panopticon of the modern office and radar scope of the management class”?
I cynically think it’s the latter, and it’s become a specific topic that I ask about in interviews.
Remote-refusant companies: pass, remote-only companies: a bit better, remote optional or hybrid companies: let’s talk. I’d rather work for a place that treats me, the professional like a professional and gives me the choice and say in the matter.
If my employer does not believe we have been working this past 18 months I wish someone would have told me so I could have hiked the Pacific Crest Trail or taken up gardening full time.
Alot of engineers are stuck in bullshit jobs where most meeting can be emails and no reason to be physically anywhere except clock the 8 hours so we can get paid. How many times have we coded a 21 hour task in 50 minutes of stack?
Now. group 2. People that have startups people with aspiration people developing actually usefull software.
Guess who doesn't need to go to the office?
It seems ludicrous to me that some people are able to get this much done in an hour. If I'm able to exercise AND shower in that amount of time I'm doing good.
This is true of both people I work with at my company and industry peers. And I've heard the same argument from many people with respect to attending industry events and the like where many value the hallway track which has been pretty much dismal with online events.
(To be clear, I obviously don't mean the whole company at a large company. But I do think it important for teams and people who otherwise work together.)
The people I employ are on "my" team just as I am on "their" team. It's not a question of ownership.
I decided to set us up as a work from anywhere business at the start of the pandemic because that's best for my team and for the business overall.
Having said that I still need face to face meetings from time to time, as do our clients... notwithstanding I'll always consider the impact of those requests on my individual team members.
I have no issues with retention and my employee NPS scores are consistently over 50 percent.
There are countless companies and organizations doing business across the entire world, having never met the other party "face to face".
I met with my work team in person last week - at the beach, not the office - and it was great to see their faces after 18 months. I can see the benefits of working face to face from time to time. Once a month ought to be more than enough, if not once a quarter.
But I am never giving up the 30 second commute.
TBH I don't mind going to the office from time to time. It is indeed nice to see colleagues face to face. What I'm against is organizations forcing people to be present in the office every X out of fear that people won't feel "connected" to the organization.
Californians were already one of the most hated groups west of the Rockies and now they're moving out in droves, acting just as entitled as people already assumed they were.
In fact, what you specifically mean is "Silicon Valley tech workers," given that pay and CoL are much, much lower in most of America, including for tech workers.
Suppose your office were next door. Then, you could have a 1-minute commute and enjoy some degree of socialization and the amenities of the office. You could have lunch at home, and you wouldn't need dedicated workspace there.
The fact that many would prefer this setup to WFH suggests that the problem is not the office itself but the commute. There is a distance that, for most folks, commuting doesn't present much of a problem.
For example, my commute by bicycle is about 9 minutes, bus 15 minutes, car 20 minutes. I think the trade-off is worth it here, but I can imagine a point where it wouldn't be.
There are only a few places in the world with transit of that caliber (Tokyo, London, NYC, etc. ). Even most medium or large cities aren't good enough for that experience. Public transit in Seattle is a disgrace (in most areas you're lucky if you can get one bus per half hour, and that bus is stuck in the same traffic as cars, and those buses never go from where you are to where you want - you have to go downtown and transfer from there, and the buses stop running long before the bars close). BART isn't exactly holding up well either.
I didn't read the parent as arguing for living near work. Rather I read it as him saying that the commute is what tips the scales towards WFH most days for many people. Which I think is absolutely true.
I'm just for freedom of choice.
I'm also on a very distributed team so it's not unusual if I do go into the office to meet with someone, I often don't run into anyone else I know.
That's why I tried to remain careful with the statements I made in my article. I've described my specific situation (family, both working in IT, two children, living far away from the office, etc), and didn't want to speak for everyone.
also when you have little kids its such a privilege to be home all day, being able to take a 5 min break to go give them a hug and kiss and wrestle around with them a little bit.
im super comfortable and productive working from home, i love it.
https://carrothealth.com/crowded-house-the-surprising-benefi...
I lived in a city, had a short commute to work. That was nice. But I hated living there except for that. I moved to an outlying area where I could have a house and a garden and a workshop in the garage. The commute went way up, which sucked, but when I was home I was so much more relaxed and happier it was worth it.
I'm the author of the article. My wife and I don't want to live in a city. We grew and always lived in small villages. The land is more affordable, there's much less pollution, we have more than enough space, a vegetable garden, hens, etc. We don't want to change any of that.
Of course every situation is different. Many colleagues live close to the office and are glad to be able to go there regularly. They enjoy it, and there's nothing wrong with that.
We initially found work in the capital because it's where the best opportunities are. All the big financial & European institutions have their headquarters in Brussels. Salaries are also much more interesting.
One of the points I wanted to convey in the article is that we've now proved that we can achieve the same work remotely, so there's no point in forcing us to go back to the office. It's about freedom of choice more than anything.
Heck, I could THINK.
Those things are way too scarce in an open office. So no, even for a short commute, I don't want to go to the office.
I'm a software developer. I don't enjoy socialization with other software developers. Not at all. Not ever. I write code for money, it's called "compensation" for a reason.
People do not seem to be getting the message. I don't want any degree of socialization. None. Zero. Honest question, how can I possibly make this clearer to people like you?